After I built my lathe I happened to read a copy of Guy Lautard's Machinist Bedside Reader. In it was a description of a lathe built in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. It was amazing for me to read, having built the Gingery lathe, under of course, extremely different circumstances. There is an uncanny resemblance in the machine -- though theirs was far more sophisticated than mine in the end, and better built.

Nicely done. One of the things I did on my Gingery Lathe is run two rows of counter sunk screws to hold the 1/2" CRS ways to the bed casting. I found that solidified the ways a lot. There is a photo here:http://www.autoartisans.com/gingery.htm

I now have an ELS running the Gingery so I can thread and taper without gears.

My Gingery lathe is stored waiting for shop space right now. Maybe I will have it out by again this fall as I will be making more space.

I have wanted to work on it and dress it up/improve it for some time. Now that I can cast iron, for example, I'd like to make a new saddle and cross slide. Also aluminum gears for screw cutting and back gears maybe. I have already added home made QCTP and a 3 jaw chuck. The QCTP shares holders with the Craftsman lathe I am using now.

OH - MY - GOODNESS, Vtsteam!!! I just stumbled onto this string and am amazed, incredibly impressed and duely humbled. Your work makes mine look like child's play. Your documentation of the build processed is priceless literature. This is truly publishable as a record of the best that can be achieved. Thank you for demonstrating what can be done and for sharing the literary and pictoral process. Ralph

Ralph, thank you! But I feel that way about yours and many other people's work on this forum, work of amazing quality that is definitely beyond my abilities, while my stuff seems pretty straightforward to me, and in need of improvement. You and others here are an inspiration to me to learn how to make things well. So thank you, too!

VT, as you know I am new here at MadModder. I came upon your thread on the building of the Gingery Lathe and read it with true amazement! The skills you developed are as important as the machine you built (maybe the skills are more important?). I have had an interest in casting, watching John Doubleboost's videos, and now seeing your work has inspired me to persue casting a bit more seriously! Are the Gingery books the place I should start? Very interested in what you said about melting with wood fires, can you recommend a source for more info on that?

I do like the Gingery books a lot. The first two really cover all of the basics -- others add refinements. The first two are "The Charcoal Furnace", and "Build a Lathe from Scrap" -- I believe those are the correct titles. They were like $10 each when I bought them -- probably a little more now, but still, bargains.

But I also like Terry Aspin's two backyard foundry books as well. They are British books, and I had to import them back at the turn of the millennium -- but I believe they are more easily available here these days through Amazon or some other source. The illustrations are really well done (drawn by Mr. Aspin himself) -- just great little books. So those are the four books that got me really going. All are short paperbacks.

They really get you excited about casting, and with minimal materials -- the straight old fashioned DIY stuff. These books will give you the straight scoop in the traditional way, and both produce excellent castings if followed.

re. melting aluminum with wood -- I don't know of much information about it -- I just experimented with a spring cleanup bonfire of fallen pine limbs. I put the crucible in the glowing embers at the base of the fire (technically therefore it was a charcoal fire), and waited for it to melt, which it did.

I've also seen it rapidly approach melting stage when I held raw castings up over my charcoal making barrel when loaded with wood. I did that to break up the castings at "black heat" but wasn't fast enough removing it in one case an part of the casting melted off and fell into the fire.

Aluminum only needs about 1300 degrees F, and just about any fire big enough will produce that.